DANIEL BRYCE

Subtitle

What the Green Party Stands For

I am frequently asked what exactly the Green Party stands for; simply put, it is a more sustainable economy that considers the social and ecological costs, reform of the electoral system creating a more equitable and representative governing/voting system and the idea that we should all be finding the common ground of ideas and initiatives on which we can build upon.

The following are platform points that I focused on during the 2011 Federal election. Unfortunately most of these issues are still relevant.

Top Three/Bottom Three: Issues Facing Canada

Here are a few of the most important issues I believe our country is facing.

The top three are issues that I want to see and that the Green Party supports

The bottom three are issues that are troubling and we need to get rid of.

Top 1

Tax Shift- Lets reduce the income tax for everyone and free up more funding for things we like. Instead lets Tax things that are unhealthy, unncessary and just plain destructive.

Making votes count - If you have ever been discouraged from voting because it feels useless.... like your vote doesn't matter... that the win is already in the bag... that your choice is never elected... then you understand why we need a new voting system.

We currently use an archaic "First-past-the-post" system that only a handful of countries around the world use; (and many of them could barely even be called democracies)

I believe we use it because it is realatively simple.... I don't think that is a good enough reason.... there are alot of other options that work really well and are far better at proportionally representing the population.

Bottom 1

Tarsands/oilsands - this is an economic deadend with huge short term profits and even larger longterm costs. The largest industrial project in the world is also the most catestrophic ecological nightmare... and then there are the social costs.

Military - we were once leaders in the world in peace keeping. Now we are trying to become a military power, something that is contrary to our Canadian National identity. The path to military dominance is not a good road to travel down as we can never achieve parity with other world powers; and most of all the act of violence only creates more violence.

Attack Politics - this is more about ignoring actual issues than anything else. The politicians seem to have no desire to work together to achieve common goals and would rather take potshots at each other. They come across as juvinile and Canadians are not stupid, they don't want to see ads about how much you dislike each other.

Reform the structure of Canada's development assistance by creating an expanded, senior Cabinet-level Department for International Development. The mandate of this new department will include aid policy but also extend to ensuring a coherent development policy across the Government as a whole (working on equal footing with Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada and the Department of National Defence). This new department would incorporate all the existing responsibilities of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Improve the accountability of our development assistance:

Establish an expert-led Independent Commission for Aid Impact to ensure aid projects are delivering maximum value for money and achieving the greatest impact in poverty reduction. The Commission should be accountable to Parliament and make its reviews publicly available.

Report and share the impact and results (including our failures and lessons) of Canada's development efforts in a thorough, evidence-based annual report to Parliament.

Promote more creative, performance-based aid:

Create a venture-focused "Implementation Innovation Fund" to finance the expansion of promising initiatives. This would complement the existing research-focused Development Innovation Fund and provide later stage financing to take ideas to scale.

Pilot cash-on-delivery or a "pay for performance" style of aid, an outcomes-based approach to aid that focuses on results and promotes recipient country ownership.

Strengthen the transparency of Canadians development assistance:

Join 18 of the world's leading donor organizations - comprising over half of global aid - by signing on to the International Aid Transparency Initiative, which creates a common global standard for reporting and making comparable information about aid projects publicly available.

Vision Green

"Our solutions are realistic because they follow “best practices” already in place in parts of Canada and around the world. These practices are cost-effective, deliver results, and benefit people, the economy and the environment.

The Green Party’s down-to-earth solutions will work in Canada because they have worked around the world. Many have been successfully applied in Europe, where Greens are elected at all political levels, including the European Union and national parliaments. Countries where Greens have served in government are the countries creating new high-paying jobs while simultaneously meeting targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They are the countries where the gap between rich and poor is small and the standard of living is high. These countries don’t trade off the environment for the economy. Their economies and environmental laws are both strong".